The Crocodile Read Free Page A

last thing he had heard in her voice was hatred.
    The coffee up here was good. At least that was something.
    The transfer had been advisable, of course. Far enough to put him out of play, but not far enough to make it look like a punishment, for something he might or might not have done, for something that couldn’t be proven, one way or another. Naples, San Gaetano police station, in the flabby belly of a city that was decomposing. Evidently they couldn’t find anything worse, at least nothing that was readily available.
    The inspector had welcomed him in a meeting in his office. “You understand, Lojacono, given the situation, that it’s not advisable to put you in charge of investigations.” Advisable, not advisable, he’d mused as he listened. “So I’ll have to ask you not to get involved in anything that smacks of investigation.”
    “Then what will I be doing?” he’d asked.
    “Don’t worry about that, you won’t be asked to do anything. Check in with the Crime Reports Office and once you’re there, you can do what you like: read books, write your memoirs. Just stay there and don’t worry. It won’t last long, I can promise you that.”
    Ten months. Enough to make you lose your mind. Phone call after phone call, in a desperate and unsuccessful attempt to talk to his daughter. From his hometown, from his home office, came only deafening silence. Suspended in time and space, sitting at an empty desk, playing poker against the computer, with no one to keep him company but Giuffrè, another outcast, a onetime driver for a member of parliament, and so on staff but in bureaucratic purdah, assigned to take down the deranged complaints of crazy old women, as he had that morning.
    I shouldn’t think badly of Giuffrè, he told himself. After all, he’s the only one willing to talk to me.

CHAPTER 4
    Sweetheart, my darling,
     
    I’m here. At last. I’m breathing your air. Perhaps, even as I write, here in this room, there might be a little left—air that once flowed into your lungs and then out again
.
    The last few months were endless. She took so long to die, and in the end every breath she took was a desperate death rattle. I sat up all night at her bedside, hoping that noise would come to an end, that I’d finally be free. God, it took her forever.
    She had become my prison. She wasted away in the bed, slowly, imperceptibly. No one came to see us after a while; the very sight of her was intolerable. A shipwreck of life.
    Not me. I never let myself go. I had you, my darling.
    The thought of you sustained me every second of the day; the idea that I could see you again, hold you again in my arms—that idea lifted me up and carried me away from my despair. You saved me, my darling. Your smile, your beauty, your blonde hair. The warmth of your hands on my face. I could feel you at night, in my half-waking state punctuated by that endless death rattle. I saw you with the eyes of my desire, like a lighthouse in the night, like a house in a tempest.
    Sweetheart, my darling.
    The sound of your name murmured in the silence gave me the strength it took to stay by her side right up to the end. Because I knew there was still a chance I could hold you close to me again.
    I never wasted a second, you know that, right? I organized everything.
    I learned how to surf the internet. People say that it’s hard for a man my age, but it wasn’t difficult at all. You’re smiling, aren’t you, my darling? You’re thinking that nothing could be as hard as these years I’ve lived without you. That’s right, that’s exactly how it is. Nothing is as hard as that.
    It’s incredible how easy it is to organize everything. All you need is the time, and I had nothing but time. Then, your letters told me everything I needed to know. How many times I read them and reread them, my darling. Spreading them out before me like relics, taking care not to get them dirty, not to tear them. Touched only by your fingers and mine. No one